When Jesus said in John 13, love one another as I have loved you, he had just washed their feet. They were acting about as ugly as they ever acted in the New Testament, and yet he said, Love each other like I've loved you. What did he do? He washed their dirty feet. And that's what he's saying.
Love is an act of service to one in need, not necessarily an emotion. Yeah. Welcome to Grace to You, featuring the Bible teaching of John MacArthur. I'm your host, Phil Johnson.
Well, it's only a week away, and if you've forgotten, advertisers are sure to remind you: Valentine's Day is coming. And as greeting cards are bought, dinner reservations are made, flowers are delivered, it seems appropriate to look at what Scripture says about true love and the important role love plays in each of our lives. John will do that today in his series called Love No Matter What. But first, with the idea of expressing love in mind. We want to express our love and gratitude to the staff at this radio station.
The men and women serving at radio stations like this one give voice to John MacArthur's Bible teaching, and they are our partners in the truest sense.
So, on behalf of the entire Grace to You staff, thank you for the part you play in this ministry. And, friend, if I could make a suggestion, contact the team at this radio station and thank them for airing Bible teaching programs like Grace to You. You'll encourage them more than you know. And thanks for doing that and for following along with John MacArthur now. To continue his series called Love No Matter What, here's John.
With your Bibles, I want you to look. at Matthew chapter 5, verses 43 to 48. Matthew 5, 43 to 48. We all have friends, and I guess we all have enemies. We all have people who love to be with us, and we have people who love to attack us.
And the test of our Christian character is not how we treat our friends, it's how we treat our enemies. That's the bottom line. You can really tell all there is to know about a man's true spirituality by what he does when people attack him. By what he does when people Despise or hate or persecute. or stand against or criticize Because then will be the revelation of the reality of his life.
And if he is a creature of love, made so by the indwelling presence of Jesus Christ. He will love that person just as much as he will love his dearest friend. Because it will be his character to love. and have little to do with the person involved. That is essentially what Jesus is saying in this passage.
He is saying, Your tradition tells you, verse 43. Love your neighbor and hate your enemies. That's what you've learned. You've learned that there is a justification for hatred. You've learned that there is a place for vilification and animosity and bitterness and revenge and resentment.
You've been told that your pride is justified and your prejudice is allowable. You've been told that there are some people you well should hate. But verse forty-four, I say unto you, Love even your enemies. You see what men do and what God Commands are two different things. And that's the essence here.
You see, the people to whom Jesus spoke thought that they were good enough. He says, you're not good enough at all. Your kind of love is not adequate. Your kind of love is very, very narrow. It picks out its objects.
The love of those in my kingdom is indiscriminate. It loves friend and foe just the same. Just the same. In Luke chapter 23, verse thirty-four, we see. A beautiful illustration of this.
The Romans have done a foul deed. They have taken the lovely Son of God. They have driven nails into his hands. They have driven nails through his feet. attaching him to a wooden cross.
They have lifted the cross and dropped it in its socket, and when it hit, the jolt would have ripped and torn his flesh. They have spit on him and mocked him. The Jews have done a foul deed. They have accused him of being a blasphemer. They've screamed for his blood.
They too have mocked him. Casting things in his face. He hangs on the cross. At his feet. is a vicious, frenzied, frantic, hateful, despising mob.
Thirsty for his blood, The result of Years of bitterness and hatred against one who was only An agent of love. And how does he react to that? And what is his attitude to them? Luke 23, 34 says. Jesus said, Father, Forgive them.
For they know not what they do. And they parted his garment and cast lots. In the midst of his magnanimous prayer of forgiveness, they were still busy. gambling for his cloak. But the point that I want you to see is that Jesus could love them.
So much. that he could beseech the Father on behalf of their forgiveness. That's not a human love. That just isn't true of mankind. You say, well, Jesus was God.
You know, we can't do that thing. That's beyond us. We can't love enemies to that degree. I think we can't. There's another biblical illustration in the seventh chapter of the book of Acts.
There was a man by the name of Stephen, full of faith and full of the Holy Spirit, a man who was numbered among the first chosen in the church in Jerusalem as a godly man to be placed over some important ministry. Stephen, who was the best of the very best in the early church. Stephen, who was a man who knew God and who knew the Old Testament and knew the new covenant, even in Jesus Christ. And Stephen stood up in the seventh chapter of Acts and he preached an indicting, powerful message, not unlike Peter's message on Pentecost, and he laid bare the sinfulness of Israel. And when he was finished, the people were so frantic and so overwrought and so cut to the heart, says Luke as he writes, that they literally screamed with their voices and clapped their hands over their ears that they wouldn't hear anything from this man.
And they picked him up and threw him over a precipice, and then they began to pummel his body with stones. And the Bible says, in the midst of this, he pulled himself into a kneeling position. Just imagine that. Stephen was lying at the foot of this, receiving the stones, and he managed to pull himself into a kneeling position to do what? To pray a prayer.
And what was his prayer? Simply this, Lord. Lay not this sin to their charge. Lord Be merciful. Don't make him pay for this.
Be gracious. To them? That's loving your enemies. I have several times read the story of George Wishart. who was a martyr in the early years.
For his faith in Christ, He was to die because he loved Jesus and wouldn't deny him. And so he was taken to the place of execution. The executioner Prepared to take his life, but he had known of his life and testimony, and he was so burdened with the guilt of his role as executioner that he hesitated in reluctance in taking his life. The biographer says at the point. Where he hesitated, Wishart looked up and saw the hesitation, and so he stood up.
Put his arms around him. embraced his executioner, planted a kiss on his cheek, and said to him, Sir, May that be a token. That I forgive you. That's loving your enemies. And that's what Jesus is talking about.
Kingdom character doesn't hate. It doesn't even hate enemies. Not kingdom character. Not the kind of character that manifests godliness. Not the kind that manifests the virtue of a transformed life.
And that's the message here. You see, the Jews felt that they were already all right, but the Lord shows them that they're not, as proven by the fact that even their love is an inept, inadequate, narrow. kind of thing. And so Jesus presents to them The truth about love. In verses 44 to 48, we have the teaching of Jesus.
In response to the tradition of the Jews. The tradition of the Jews? Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. The teaching of Jesus. Quite different.
As we go through this passage, there are five points. That I want you to see as we move. Five Ascending connected sequential truths that lead us to a marvelous conclusion. I pray that God will really show you. As we move, how these apply in your heart.
Now keep two things in mind. Jesus is speaking here, and really there is a twofold purpose. One, let's say a person is not a Christian and they're hearing this. What is their reaction? Their reaction is to know that they fall short of God's standard.
Their reaction is to know that they don't love like this, they can't love like this, therefore, they're sinful. Because this is required. And if you don't love like this, you're a sinner. And if you're a sinner, you need a savior.
So the message that Jesus is giving to the people there, to the Jews, to the massive crowd, is that this should prove to you once and for all that you haven't arrived and that you need a Savior. And then of course, he is the one who offers himself as that savior. But there was another group on the hillside when he preached this, and that was his disciples. They had already believed in him. They had already committed their lives to him.
But sometimes, even for those of us who have been forgiven for our lack of love, those of us who have been given the power to love fail to love. And so, for us, this becomes an exhortation, doesn't it? to live up to what is now potentially a reality. First, he is saying, you are a sinner if you don't love like this and you must be forgiven. Then he says, if you have been forgiven and you have been given the capacity to love like this, you must respond to that in obedience.
So it's a message for everyone. the crowd and the disciples. For you that know Christ An exhortation to a greater love. For you that don't. The realization that you're a sinner and you fall short.
And you need a saviour. Let's look. At the first point. In the five. Jesus says simply in verse 44, But I say unto you, love your Enemies.
Now, beloved, this was just a devastating statement in the society in which Jesus lived because there was so much hate. The Wonderful commentator William Hendrickson writes. All around Jesus were walls and fences. He came for the very purpose of bursting those barriers so that love, pure, warm, divine, infinite love, would be able to flow straight down from the heart of God, hence from his own marvelous heart, into the hearts of men. His love overleaped all the boundaries of race and nationality and party and age and sex.
When he said, I tell you, love your enemies, he must have startled his audience, for he was saying something that probably never before had been said so succinctly, positively, and forcefully. End quote. He was saying something that they just didn't do. Love your enemies. Are you kidding?
I read of a native tribe in Polynesia. Who had around their huts special articles hanging all around the roof of the hut? A visitor said, What are they? They said they are reminders. Reminders of what?
Reminders of injury? When anybody injures us Or anybody does something against us, we hang a token of that injury there.
So that we will remember every time we have been wronged, and none is ever removed until full vengeance is gained. That's the human way. That's not God's way. That's the way the Pharisees lived. Around their legalistic hut hung all of the articles or symbols of their vengeance.
They were proud and prejudicial. Judgmental. Hateful men. Masquerading. As Religious.
And Jesus devastates that. He says, just in one statement: love your enemies. what is contradictory to their entire lifestyle. They hate it. They hated the rabble mob.
They hated the publicans who were the tax collectors who had sold out to Rome. They hated the Gentiles. They literally despised them. And Jesus gives them a simple command that lays bare all that hate. Love your enemies, he says.
Ooh. Does he have in mind, everybody? We talked last time about neighbor encompassing enemy, didn't we? Neighbor is a big enough word to encompass an enemy. Jesus said, Love your neighbor as yourself.
An enemy fits into that. A neighbor is anybody in need, isn't it? Remember, we looked at Luke 10 and we talked about the Good Samaritan and how, in the story, the Good Samaritan, we said that the Good Samaritan came along and he saw this man who was a Jew, and Samaritans and Jews didn't have any dealings. There was tremendous hatred between the two of them. And yet he went over and he saw that man and he said, That man's my neighbor.
And he bound up his wounds and he cared for him and he wrapped him and he put him on his animal and took him to the inn and paid his bill and did the whole thing. And he made a sacrifice, didn't he? A sacrifice of time, a sacrifice of energy, a sacrifice of money, a sacrifice of prejudice, a sacrifice of all of the factors of his life to stop and do all of that. Because a man was in need. And we said that's That's the way it is.
Your neighbor is anybody in your path with a need. But in Luke 10 and the Good Samaritan, Jesus really is making an opposite point as well. Because the lawyer said, Who is my neighbor? I mean, I'm going to go through the world and I want to pick out my neighbors and do what I should. But when Jesus came to the end of the story, he said, Who was that man's neighbor?
Or which one of the three that came down the road showed themselves to be his neighbor?
Now what was he saying? First there was a priest and he ignored it, then there was a Levite and basically they were the helpers of the priest, so they fit into the religious community, and he passed by, and then a half-breed Samaritan and he helped him. And he said to the lawyer, which one of those proved to be the wounded man's neighbor? In other words, Jesus turned the tables. Instead of going through life, And trying to pick out who your neighbor is.
He says, Are you a neighbor? Because if you're a neighbor, then anybody in your path is going to get your neighborly love. It kind of works like this. In our society, humanly speaking, we basically are object-oriented in our love, aren't we? You know, yeah.
You sort of love people on the basis of the kind of object they are if they're attractive. For example, when the guys are looking for some girl to marry, girls come across their path and they'll say, you know, no, thanks, keep moving. I'm not there yet. And, you know, different girls will come along. All of a sudden, boom, you know, there she is, you know, and you just kind of zing, zero in on her.
And there's something attractive there, and there's this emotional thing that hooks you to the thing, and you don't feel that with anybody else.
So that our love is object-oriented. When we look at a picture, or we look at a house, or the style of a car, there are some objects that attract our affection and some that do not. There are certain personalities that attract our love, and some that do not.
Now that's the human kind of affection. And that's really what the lawyer was saying.
Now, as I go through the world, how do I know which objects I should attach to? Jesus is saying that's not the issue. The issue is are you a neighbor? If you're a neighbor and your heart is filled with love, any object that gets in your path is going to receive that love. See That's what he's saying.
He's saying don't try to figure out who your neighbor is. You be the neighbor to everybody. And then you won't have a problem.
Okay. Jesus is calling for love toward an enemy. And that's a simple thing. I don't know how else to say it other than. to simply say It means to love everybody exactly the same.
Be they friend or foe. You say, what do you mean by love, Jan? I don't mean affection. We talked about that last time. God doesn't expect you to love them filial like a friend.
Doesn't expect you to love them storge like you love somebody in your own family. He doesn't expect you to love them eros, affectionate, desiring love. But what he does say is to love them agapa'o, which is a love that seeks their highest good and seeks to serve their needs. When Jesus said in John 13, love one another as I have loved you, he had just washed their feet. At that point, he wasn't saying, you know, these disciples are so wonderful, they're just irresistible.
No, they were cantankerous, ugly, arguing over who would be the greatest in the kingdom. They were acting sinful. They were self-motivated and self-centered and couldn't even be considerate enough to consider Christ going to the cross and comfort him. They were acting about as ugly as they ever acted in the New Testament, and yet he said, Love each other like I've loved you. What did he do?
He washed their dirty feet. And that's what he's saying. Love is an act of service to one in need, not necessarily an emotion. You'll notice that he says, Love your enemies. And then the text also in the King James says, Bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you.
Now that's not in the critical text or manuscript text. It's been brought into this one from Luke 6. The Lord did say it. Matthew just didn't include it, and some scribe brought it over. But it's really true.
If you love your enemy, when he curses you, you'll bless him, and when he hates you, you'll do good to him. That's the practical outworking of it. You see, it is not so much the feeling, watch this, it is not so much the feeling as when your enemy is your enemy. You say things that bless him. And you do good to him.
It is what you say and what you do that God is after, not how you feel. You may have an enemy, and in your heart, you know there's no great human affection. You know there'll never be a great friendship. You know you'll never embrace him like a person in your family. But you will, with your mouth, bless him in what you say, and with your life bless him in what you do.
So, that we find that the love that we're talking about here is the love of action. Not the love of emotion. Look with me for a moment at 1 Corinthians chapter 13. 1 Corinthians chapter 13. And what is it saying but Perhaps the greatest definition ever given of love.
I want to have you note verse 4 through 7. Just briefly. We could spend a lot of time on this, and rightly we should and have in the past, but for this moment, just a brief look. But keep in mind one great and important truth. There are fifteen characteristics of love given here.
All of them appear in a verbal form. They're not presented as substantives. They are presented as verbs. Why? Because love is doing.
Love is in action. Love can never be defined statically. Love can never be defined as a plateau. Love is always an activity, always an action. And by the way, somebody has titled this as the Beatitudes Set to Music, or a lyrical interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount.
So others have seen the parallel. But Paul, in describing love, uses verbs because love is only described in terms of what it does, that's all. And I suppose the reason that you don't always believe somebody who says they love you when they say it is because they say it, but there never seems to be anything done about it. And you have every right to question that kind of love. Because love does things.
For example, verse. For love. is patient. Literally means long-tempered, and most times the word is used of patience with people. Love is patient.
Love is kind. It means literally in the Greek, useful. In other words, love sets itself to do deeds of kindness that help people in their time of need. And then it says love. does not envy.
That is, it doesn't have a competitive spirit. It isn't jealous. It joys in another's success. And it says love is not boastful. Is not boastful.
Vaunteth not itself means is not boastful. And I think the Greek word there has mostly to do with outward bragging, outward pretense, outward showing off, the voice of conceit. And then it says, following that, love is not puffed up. And I think that's talking more about the inside, the inward, big-headed, self-centered. See, love is not self-centered.
It's patient toward people. It's kind, and it has no competitive spirit, no jealousy, never envies anybody else's position or anybody else's situation at all, and can just totally rejoice in somebody else's success. Love does not behave rudely or unseemly, it says. And that's such a beautiful thought at the beginning of verse five. Love is always considerate, always concerned with somebody else, always tender in dealing with people, even evil people.
Love never insists on its rights. You know, today you can even take courses. Do you know this? You can even go to seminars a week long and take courses on how to assert your rights. That's not the way love acts.
Love seeks not its own. In other words, it's unselfish. It only seeks the things of others. Love is not provoked, and that means it doesn't have a sudden outburst of anger or rage. It never reacts to injury or loses its temper.
Love thinks no evil. That is, it always imagines the best about people. It always wants to think the very best. It always wants to give the benefit of the doubt. It always forgives and forgets, and never carries a grudge, and is never defensive, never eager to blame somebody else.
And then it says, Love in verse 6 rejoices not in iniquity. Love never takes pleasure when someone else sins, never takes pleasure when someone else is chastised. It rejoices in the truth. That is, love is positive, encouraging goodness. And love.
Then four things bears all things. believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love bears all things. It's a beautiful Greek word. It means to cover something.
It throws a blanket on others' faults, it just covers them up. It believes all things. It's never suspicious. It always believes the best. It hopes all things.
Even when it knows there's a failure, it's optimistic enough to believe that something different's going to happen. There's going to be a change. It refuses to take the failure as final. And then love endures all things. No matter what you do to love.
Verse 8 says, love. Never what? fails. Boy, what a great picture. Just like shining a light into a prism, it splatters all of the colors of love.
Do you love like that? That's the kind of love that characterizes our Lord Jesus Christ. That's the way God loves. If you don't love like that, you need a Savior. And if you've received the forgiveness for a lack of love and Christ lives in your heart and you have forgiveness and you have His love shed abroad, as Romans 5:5 says, but you're not letting that love out, you're bottling it up, then you need to make a new commitment to love the way He says you're love.
The commentator Lenski says It indeed Sees all the hatefulness and the wickedness of the enemy, feels his stabs and his blows, may even have something to do toward warding them off, but all this simply fills the loving heart with the one desire and aim to free its enemy from his hate, to rescue him from his sin, and thus to save his soul. Mere affection is often blind. But even then it thinks that it sees something attractive in the one toward whom it goes. The higher love may see nothing attractive in the one so loved. His inner motive is simply to bestow true blessing on the one loved and to do him the highest good.
Belensky says, I cannot love a low, mean criminal who robs me and threatens my life. At least in the sense of liking him. And I cannot like a false, lying, slanderous fellow who perhaps has vilified me again and again. But I can, by the grace of Jesus Christ, love them all. See what is wrong with them, desire and work to do them only good, and most of all to free them from their vicious ways.
End quote. And so we are to love. not in terms of a feeling, but in terms of Service Paul says it so beautifully in Romans 12, verse 20. Let me read it to you. Therefore If thine enemy hunger, Feed him.
If he thirst, Give him drink. That's how you treat an enemy. If he's hungry, feed him. If he's thirsty, give him to drink. For in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.
Basically, I think that means to bring conviction upon him. to make him feel bad about his Hatred in his sin. And be not overcome by evil. In other words, when somebody does evil to you, don't retaliate, don't lose the battle, but overcome that evil with your goodness. Let the enemy come and throw everything he can at you.
It'll never make you fall into sin. You will drown his evil, as Chrysostom said, like a spark that falls into the sea, so does an injury. Find itself extinguished when it comes into the sea of the love of a believer. When people cast their sparks of hatred at us, may they be as quenched as the spark in the sea. You're listening to Grace to You, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur.
As John said today, Christians need to be known as those who love others no matter what. That's the title of this series: Love No Matter What. Speaking of love and going back to what I said before the lesson, thank you for remembering to thank the staff at this radio station for airing Bible teaching programs like Grace to You. And keep in mind that we want to hear from you too. Let us know how John's Bible teaching has helped you grow in your love toward others when you get in touch today.
Our mailing address is gracetou. Box four thousand, Panorama City, California, nine one four one two. Or you can send your note to letters at gty dot org. That's our email address, letters at gty dot org. And thanks for helping us remain a strong voice of biblical teaching in your community and beyond.
By being faithful to pray for us, that's really the most important way you can help strengthen this ministry. And when you have a chance, go to gty.org and take advantage of the thousands of free resources available. At the Grace TU blog, look for a series of articles titled The Humility of Love. It's a great resource to help you dive deeper into the topic of biblical love. And don't forget, John's entire sermon archive, more than 3,600 sermons, is available to download in MP3 and transcript format.
Our website again, gty.org.
Now for the entire Grace to U staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Watch Grace to U television this Sunday on DirecTV Channel 378. And be back Monday when John MacArthur helps you cut through the pink and red haze of Valentine's Day. and know what true biblical love looks like. It's another half hour of Unleashing God's Truth one verse at a time on Grace to You.
